DROID RAZR MAXX preliminary battery results

Remember that “unplugged” teaser Motorola did before CES? They weren’t kidding because I’ve had the DROID RAZR MAXX for a couple of days now, and all I can say is if battery life is any concern to you, you can forget about anything else and just buy this phone. I’m still conducting more tests, but I wanted to give you some of my preliminary results.

Day 1

I took the RAZR Maxx off the charger at midnight and it sat idle for 8 hours. I was sleeping so I can’t verify, but it should’ve been on 4G LTE most of that time, but it could’ve switched to 3G periodically since I don’t live in the heart of the city. It lost 20% during these first 8 hours, and by the time 24 hours rolled around, it still had 5% left. I would say it wasn’t a heavy day as far as usage. I played games for a couple of hours and streamed Slacker for maybe 40 minutes. The display was on 20% of the time or about 5 hours. The display was set to automatic brightness, but I realized late in the day that the GPS wasn’t turned on. Bluetooth was on (but rarely connected) and WiFi was off. All in all, I would say the battery performance was superb, but I decided to work it a little more for day 2.

Day 2

GPS on, Bluetooth on (rarely connected), Wifi off, and Auto display off and turned up to about 2/3’s brightness. I took it off the charger at 7:00am and by midnight (17 hours later) it had 5% left. A lot less, but I did a lot more with it. Other than doing a little gaming and Slacker again, I played 4 hours and 15 minutes of video. The display was on a total of 42% of the time or a little over 7 hours. It was mostly connected to 4G, but some 3G was probably thrown in. 17 hours is tremendous considering the amount of video and the fact that the brightness was set fairly high, not to mention it wasn’t officially dead yet. It might have lasted another 2 hours with light usage.

To give you an even better comparison, my Galaxy Nexus also came off the charger at 7:00am, and it was dead by 7:30pm, 12 1/2 hours later. My Nexus has extended battery (2100mAh), was on WiFi the majority of the day, Bluetooth off, GPS on, auto brightness off and set to 2/3’s brightness. The display was on 42% of the time or roughly 5 hours. I didn’t play any games nor did I play any video. Again, this was on WiFi all day except for about 2 hours.

Seriously, I never expected it to be a competition. It’s 3300mAh vs 2100mAh. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who’s going to win.

Motorola has really changed the game with the DROID RAZR MAXX. At 8.9mm thick and a 3300mAh battery, no competitive phone comes close. The DROID RAZR MAXX is the only phone I’ve used in which I don’t need to panic when it’s down to 10% remaining battery. It could easily go another 3 plus hours with light usage.

I will continue to conduct more tests and add those results in my full review.

Robert lives in upstate New York where he was born and raised. Technology was always his passion. His first computer was a Radio Shack TRS80 Color that used a cassette tape to save programs, and his first laptop was a Toshiba T1200FB that sported a CGA greyscale screen and two 720kb floppy drives (no hardrive).
From the early 90’s through late 2011, he only owned Motorola phones starting with the MircroTAC all the way through to the Droid X. He broke that streak when he bought the Galaxy Nexus. Now he's sporting a Galaxy Note 4, and absolutely loves it.
He has a wonderful wife and a 6 year old son. In his free time he enjoys sports, movies, TV, working out, and trying to keep up with the rapid fast world of technology.

Anonymous

All this shows me is that LTE is incredibly inefficient. I’d much rather have HSPA+ until this gets sorted out. My Atrix (1930 mAh stock battery) can go 24 hours with extremely heavy use and 48 hours under normal use.

http://twitter.com/bstringy Brian Stringfellow

You’ll have to try your Nexus with the Codename Android rom (as your fellow Talkandroid writer Jack Holt did). I’m getting similar battery life as you describe with the Razr Max. Never seen anything like it with 5 other android devices.